They live on a track road. It has no tarmac and no road markings. The hay the nearby farmers use to put the animals to bed at night scents the air, together with flowers, somewhere, wet roses, the kind of homemade perfume she, Frannie and Rosie used to make.

‘Where to?’ Tom says, falling into step beside her. She walks him quickly past Frannie’s and Joe’s windows. She’s not ready for them to meet him. Not while she’s feeling like this, wondering about their motives. Wondering about everything, really. If they’re too close. If it’s dysfunctional.

‘This way – there’s a public footpath,’ Cathy says. ‘It goes over some fields.’

Tom’s shoulder very deliberately bumps against hers. No, not bumps, that’s the wrong word, Cathy thinks. Grazes, brushes. The softest of touches. There is something delicious about his proximity, as though somebody has just struck a match in the air between them. It hums and sings with heat.

‘So, wait, all your siblings live in these houses?’ Tom says.

‘Yep,’ she says lightly. Something in her is embarrassed by it, though she doesn’t know why. Is he a bit too interested in this set-up? What if Frannie was right about him?

‘Wow – that’s intense,’ he says. ‘You must really like each other.’

‘Sometimes,’ Cathy says wryly.

She appraises him, his calm facial expression. What would he even be doing, trying to get her to confess?

‘What have you done today?’ Cathy says, trying to ignore her racing brain.

‘Hmm, hard to say,’ Tom says. ‘Eaten four mint Aero yoghurts.’

She laughs in surprise and he glances down at her. ‘No, really,’ he says.

‘Four?’

‘They come in four packs,’ he says, shrugging.

‘What else?’ Cathy says.

The thing is, she thinks, as she looks at the off-white skies, it is all just too lovely. Even this, in the summer twilight. It is too lovely for her. She is frightened to enjoy it. She’s never told anybody that. She’s aware of it, but she can’t change it, can’t seem to.

But here she is, trying, trying, trying again. And something feels different this time.

‘I did do four lessons,’ Tom says, Cathy thinks reluctantly. They turn down a bridleway, thick with overgrown grass, barely a single-person path through it.

‘You?’ he asks. He is completely oblivious to her awkwardness, she thinks, turning her head to look at him. ‘How many mint Aero yoghurts did you have today?’

‘None,’ she says. ‘Operated on a cat,’ she adds. ‘Thyroidectomy.’

‘Wow,’ he says. They go over the stile and into the fields. Something cracks just behind her. At first she thinks it’s something falling on to the road, but then Tom says, ‘Thunder.’ He pauses for a second, then adds, ‘That is so interesting that you know how to do that.’

‘Oh,’ Cathy says, laughing shyly. ‘No, really. It’s so normal.’

‘Do you know how to operate on a cow?’ There are cows in the distance, but Cathy is not sure that is what made Tom ask. He seems kind of random, which she loves; his questions get her talking.